Conversations

He’s been reading the Chronicles of Narnia in his spare time, 3 books at least in the last week, which makes me all kinds of proud to have a reader around. He’s almost finished the last book when he asks, as we sit at the dinner table, “Are there any more books, like about all the other worlds in the pools that Digory and Polly didn’t jump into in the wood?. I think that would be cool if there were more books about other places.”

“Maybe there will be a new one coming out?”

That’s when I tell them that C.S. Lewis is dead.

“Maybe one of his kids could write another one,” the Girl wonders.

Aaron and I exchange looks, “Perhaps,” I say. “But that didn’t work out so well for Tolkien.”

“What do you mean?” The Boy asks.

“Oh, when Tolkien died his son published some stories that he found that his dad had written but never published. It was called the Silmarillion, it was a history of middle earth, but it wasn’t nearly as well written as The Lord of the Rings.”

“Oh.”

But it makes me so happy to know that he has experienced that longing we all have for a good story to just go on and on and on, the regret we feel when it comes to a close.

*********************

I am reading to all of them, sitting on the couch. Little has found a small plastic comb somewhere and is attacking my hair with it, in the name of making it pretty. She gets the detangler, sprays and combs, and sprays and combs as I read.

“Mommy!” She exclaims, interrupting a sentence. “Sometimes If you stay right there you look like a princess.”

*********************

We are eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. LIttle leans over to me from her chair.

“Mommy, when you were a little girl where did I live?”

“You didn’t. You weren’t born yet. You didn’t live anywhere.”

“Oh, right. I was inside of your body.”

“Yes, part of you was, and part of you was inside daddy and after we got married those parts met and you were born.”

“But I was born first.” The Boy interjects.

“Yes, you were born first.”

“And God knew exactly what we would be like and who we would be before any of us were born.” He announces.

I wonder who he’s been talking to or what he’s been reading because I’m not sure that’s actually an accurate understanding of what the Bible says. Rather than agreeing I say, “It does say that he knows us before we were born, while we’re being put together in our mother’s womb…”

“Mommy, mommy, mommy,” Little interrupts. “Who will I marry when I grow up.”

“I don’t know who you will marry. But I pray that whoever you marry is loving, will be wise and strong in character and be a good man to take care of my girl.”

“When I grow up I want to marry someone just like daddy.” The Girl announces. “Well, maybe not who looks like him, but someone like him.”